Sunday, January 31, 2010

...at the White House.
The folks at the National Right to Work have put together this video emphasizing the Obama White House's unnaturally close relationship with big labor's bosses. This is a clear violation of the President's campaign promise to keep lobbyists out of positions of influence in his administration. Of course, he's already broken that promise many times over.Tags:AFL-CIO, Barack Obama, Labor, Lobbyists, Nationals Right to Work, SEIU, Special Interests, UAW, UnionsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Angel Fleming and Shane Hayes, the hard charging activists that have been covering the special election in MA like no other have once again scooped the MSM. (I know, I was there and watched them do it ;)

Friday night,They ran footage of what seemed to be a Middle Eastern man with a Martha Coakley button on being forcefully removed from the Bill Clinton/Martha Coakley rally at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). They were unable to get any details at all from the police and, as you can see from the video, the Secret Service wanted them nowhere near the area.

Without a name, and with authorities being closed-lipped about any details at all, we feared this story was going to be a dead end unless we could catch a break. While covering President Obama's stump speech for Martha Coakley at Northeastern University in Boston on Sunday January 17th, we came across a familiar face standing on the street corner right next to us.

Allow us to introduce Behzad Samimi, a naturalized Iranian immigrant, who jumped on the opportunity to share with us the events that led to his removal and detainment by the Secret Service at the Bill Clinton rally.

PLEASE BOOKMARK THE SITE AND SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS. THESE TWO ARE GOING TO BE GREAT ALLIES FOR TRUTH AND AN IMPORTANT ASSET TO US ALL IN THE COMING ELECTION CYCLE.Tags:Angel Fleming, Behzad Samimi, Fleming and Hayes, MA Special Election, Martha Coakley, Scott Brown, Shane Hayes, US SenateTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Seniors’ Advocacy Organization Gives Millions to…High Schools?
“Our focus is on issues….Here, policy trumps everything.” — Associated Press story quoting AARP Executive Vice President for Social Impact Nancy LeaMond,who in 2008 received $385,598 in salary and $36,081 in other compensation from the organization.

ARRA News Service - While AARP claims to serve as a seniors’ advocacy organization, its operations charge elderly beneficiaries above-market rates for insurance policies in order to fund entities and causes that seemingly have little to do with its stated purpose:

• A review of its financial statements finds that in 2008, AARP received $652.7 million in direct “royalties and fees” from selling products like Medigap supplemental insurance policies. Royalty revenues now comprise more than half — 60.3% — of all AARP revenues; in 2008, fully 38% of AARP’s $1.1 billion in revenue came directly from United Healthcare.

• A similar review of AARP’s most recent Form 990 filing with the Internal Revenue Service reveals that these royalty fees helped fund millions of dollars in donations to organizations whose purposes appear to stray far from AARP’s stated goal of helping seniors:

o More than $1 million to 56 school districts and high schools under the rubric of the “Ethel Percy Andrus Legacy Award;”
o $10,000 to the Center for American Progress Action Fund for a “half in ten campaign to cut poverty in half in ten years;”
o $10,000 to the Consumers Union for “general support;”
o $100,000 each to the host committees for the 2008 Republican and Democratic National Conventions;
o $1,897,159 to the AARP-controlled Legal Counsel for the Elderly;
o $200,000 to the Make it Right Foundation to “build affordable green housing;”
o $2,050,000 to WETA—the Public Broadcasting Service affiliate in Washington, DC—“to support the production and national television distribution of Washington Week with Gwen Ifill;” and
o $21,624,619 to the AARP Foundation.

While grants to schools, “affordable green housing,” and public broadcasting may be worthwhile efforts, many may question their relationship to AARP’s stated mission as a seniors advocacy organization. Moreover, a Bloomberg news analysis published in December found that seniors have been charged hundreds of dollars above market rates for AARP-branded coverage—a practice which several of the organization’s own members called “unconscionable.” Given these facts, many may question: Whom does AARP serve — its members, or its executives’ political wishes? And is AARP a seniors’ advocacy group, or a billion-dollar insurance company masquerading as a “charity” organization?Tags:AARP, ARRA News Service, dirty secret, government healthcare, kickbacks, liberals, medicare, royalties, seniorsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

ARRA News Service - This week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it was investigating Humana for providing “misleading” information regarding the Administration’s proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage policies—and prohibited other Medicare Advantage plans from providing similar information on how Democrat health “reform” could take away their current coverage.

Yet the Administration’s edict prohibiting plans from communicating with their beneficiaries failed to include AARP, which sponsors a Medicare Advantage plan but has been a prime advocate of Democrats’ government takeover of health care—quite possibly because AARP has been supporting a health care overhaul from which it stands to gain overall handsomely. Even as AARP advocates for cutting Medicare Advantage plans by more than $150 billion, an analysis of the organization’s operations reveals that it stands to receive tens of millions of dollars at the expense of seniors’ medical care—with Democrats’ full approval:

• The Congressional Budget Office has previously estimated that the cuts to Medicare Advantage plans proposed in Democrats’ government takeover of health care (H.R. 3200) would cause millions of seniors to lose their current plan and enroll in government-run Medicare.

• Because the government-run Medicare benefit is less generous than most private health plans, the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found in June that more than nine in ten seniors not in nursing home settings utilize some form of Medicare supplemental insurance. While many of these individuals currently rely on Medicare Advantage plans for the extra benefits they provide to seniors, many would be forced to purchase supplemental Medigap policies should their existing Medicare Advantage plans be taken away from them due to Democrats’ government takeover of health care.

• A review of its financial statements finds that in 2008, AARP received more than half a billion dollars in revenue from selling products like Medigap supplemental insurance policies—$652.7 million in direct “royalties and fees,” and an increase of more than 31 percent from the $497.6 million in similar revenue AARP generated in 2007.

• Royalty revenues now comprise more than half — 60.3% - of all AARP revenues; a Bloomberg news analysis published in December found that in 1999, royalties comprised only 11% of the organization’s total revenues.

• The Bloomberg article—which highlighted what one observer called AARP’s “dirty little secret”— profiled seniors who felt betrayed after paying hundreds of dollars above market price for AARP branded coverage. One noted that “AARP has great buying power, and people should be able to get the best deal….This is unconscionable, what AARP has allowed to happen.” Another disillusioned senior wrote to the organization’s leadership asking whether AARP had a “‘special relationship’ with [insurance carriers] by which it receives commissions, incentives, rebates, or dare I say ‘kickbacks?’”—and when he arrived at AARP headquarters for a tour, was promptly escorted out of the marble-covered atrium.

• While H.R. 3200 would place strict price controls on Medicare Advantage plans—requiring them to pay out 85% of premium revenues in medical claims — Medigap policies face a far less strict 65% requirement. In other words, under the Democrat bill, seniors could pay as much as 20 cents more out of every premium dollar to fund “kickbacks” to AARP-sponsored Medigap plans than Medicare Advantage plans.

The higher prices charged by AARP plans, and the organization’s increasing dependence upon revenue from “royalties,” provide tangible evidence why AARP would support cuts to Medicare Advantage that would likely increase their “kickbacks” from Medigap plans. However, it does not answer several key questions:

• Given the myriad new layers of insurance regulation included in Democrats’ government takeover of health care, why does the legislation not include a single provision attempting to impose any new restrictions on Medigap policies?

• Did Democrats “forget” to protect seniors—or were they informed that AARP could not support legislation that would limit its lucrative revenue source?

• Similarly, did CMS “forget” to include AARP among the organizations whose First Amendment rights to inform seniors of harmful Medicare provisions were restricted—or did the Administration only wish to silence its critics, and not outside organizations using “kickbacks” to fund advertising in support of the Democrat agenda?

These questions hint at a more fundamental query: With seniors believing that AARP is “making money on the backs of old people,” who should believe that the organization is looking out for seniors’ interests and not its own?Tags:AARP, dirty secret, government healthcare, kickbacks, medicare, royalties, seniorsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Monday, January 4, 2010

It just may be possible. And of all places for it to happen, Massachusetts is the battleground!

That's right, the land of Martha's Vineyard, Ted Kennedy, and Barney Frank may hold the key to stopping the runaway train to Socialism that we've been trying to derail for months!

On January 19, there will be a special election to fill the seat vacated by Senator Kennedy's death. Without this seat, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda will fall flat on its face because the Socialists in DC will no longer be able to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Here's a press release from Conservative Solutions on Facebook that lays out a plan for winning the first battle of 2010!

On Tuesday, January 19th there is a special election for the US Senate in Massachusetts. This race has huge national implications. This is the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy and most importantly, would represent the 41st vote breaking Harry Reid’s filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

If we can elect Army Natl. Guard Lt. Col. Scott Brown to the US Senate then…

Obamacare. – Dead

Cap and Trade – Dead

Another Stimulus Package – Dead

This will be a very low turnout election so GOTV is crucial.

Here are two things you can do.

Click on this link to make Voter ID and GOTV calls via the Brown Campaign’s virtual phone bank. We are halfway towards our goal of making 500,000 calls by election day. The sooner we can make the initial calls, the sooner we can start re-calling Undecided’s.

Also, if you have $5, 10, $25, $50 or whatever you can spare, please sign up to donate to the Brown Campaign on January 11.

I understand that for some of you, Scott may not be as socially conservative as you would like but he is as socially conservative as you can be and still get elected in Massachusetts.

His opponent supports Taxpayer funding for Abortion. She supports overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. She opposes the troop surge in Afghanistan. She supports a second stimulus package.

We've been fighting a war against our way of life for almost a year now. Here is an opportunity to deal the enemy a decisive blow, and possibly win the war. And it's a simple two step plan that can be implemented by anyone, anywhere in the US.Make phone calls for Lt. Colonel Scott BrownDonate if you canTags:Filibuster, Harry Reid, health care, MA, Massachusetts, Obamacare, Scott Brown, U.S. SenateTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!